In a new law journal article, Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, makes a case for why universities shouldn’t regulate student-athletes’ social media accounts and online speech.“What makes social media novel and empowering — that it is an immediate, unfiltered way to ‘speak’ with thousands of people — is also what makes it frightening to campus regulators,” LoMonte writes.

At a public institution, the First Amendment protects students' ability to express themselves free from government sanction, and the Due Process Clause protects against the removal of public benefits in an arbitrary way or without adequate notice.

The ability of search engines to dredge up unflattering facts has provoked global debate over whether people should have a legal "right to be forgotten" -- that is, a right to demand that embarrassing personal details be taken offline.

A bill awaiting the governor's approval in New Jersey would make it illegal for colleges and universities to require students or applicants' social media user names or passwords.The bill prohibits both private and public colleges or universities from asking for social media passwords or usernames.

There's a pivotal scene in the first theatrical "X-Files" film where David Duchovny's Agent Fox Mulder, idling at a crossroads as he ponders which way to turn in pursuit of a fleeing suspect, instinctively stomps the pedal and barrels straight ahead across unpaved prairie.Plowing your own road is a thrilling move -- for a fictional hero in a sci-fi thriller.

A dangerously broad Connecticut bill that purported to criminalize remarks about a person's "traits or characteristics" in a way that causes embarrassment is considered dead for the 2012 legislative session.Senate Bill 456 was scheduled for action Monday in the Joint Committee on Judiciary.